Free The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) by R. Scott VanKirk Page A

clouds. There was frost growing into ever-larger patches on the walls. The frost finally closed in on the flames, and despite the flames’ valiant struggle, the frost finally consumed the last of them. The flames died down and so did the fighting.
    Finally, one of the clouds of mist fell to the floor amidst the sounds of feminine anguish.
    The pain in the voice threatened to break Max's heart. It was laden with centuries of grief. The crying mist coalesced into the translucent, glowing, white form of a woman, in an elaborate antebellum gown, abjectly weeping on the floor. The second cloud paused above her.
    Max was still too stunned to move, and he watched the scene for what seemed like hours but couldn't have been more than a minute or two.
    “Oh piss...,” said the floating cloud. It settled down next to the woman and formed into another glowing white figure. This one was a handsome man dressed in a fine suit from the same period. He knelt over the woman with his back to Max. He reached down and stroked her glowing white hair. It was hard for Max to tell, but the man's suit looked like it had a large hole in the back.
    “Oh, how could you? How could you try to destroy Belle?” sobbed the fallen woman.
    “Come, Annette, let me take you to your room,” said the man. He gently picked her up off the floor. “You are making a scene in front of our guest.”
    “Oh my dear!” said the woman as she looked toward Max with wide eyes. She dropped her face in her hands and started sobbing again.
    Without a further word, the two faded from sight as he carried her up the stairs.
    All Max could do was stand there and gape. Just what he needed, two insane ghosts.

Southern Comfort
    Max was parked in front of the small county hospital and struggling to get out of his car. He had to reach around with his good hand to open the door, and he hurt in so many places it was hard to move. He finally got out and hobbled in. He recognized the nurse behind the reception counter. She had been there when he had needed patching up from his first encounter with the house. Her long dirty-blonde hair spiraled down to her shoulders in coquettish curls that just begged to be played with. She was short, moderately curvy and looked quite crisply professional in her white dress.
    He walked up to the counter. “Excuse me.”
    The nurse looked up at him, and her gray-green eyes grew wide at the sight that greeted her. Max's makeshift turban had bled through in places. The hair that hung out below the turban was coated in blood, as were his clothes. On top of this was a coating of fine white powder. He had managed to smear some of it off his face, but it stubbornly stuck in his eyebrows and to his torn clothes. The powder and blood had mixed in places to form a reddish-pink plaster, which clung tenaciously to his clothes. On top of that, he was hobbling with one hand cradled up against his chest and reeked of smoke. She quickly recognized him. The last time he had been in, he had been covered with blood as well.
    Her southern accent was charming but subdued. “Mr. Faust! Dear lord, what happened to you?”
    He considered her with blue-eyed misery, “I wouldn't even know where to begin...”
    “You poor dear!” She bustled out from behind the counter and escorted him into the small emergency area behind the counter. Max, having forgotten her name, was grateful for the name badge she wore.
    He said, “Thanks, Alice,” as she guided him to a small area surrounded by curtains and sat him on the bed. She admonished him to stay put as she hustled out to get the doctor – or perhaps the men in the white lab coats.
    After a few long minutes of painful waiting, Alice came back with Doc Bob. Doc Bob looked like he was about eighty going on dead. He was thin and as wrinkled as a thumb soaked in a bathtub too long. He saw Max and said with his heavy southern drawl, “Well boy. What have ya done gotten yerself into this time?”
    Doctor William Hodge, a.k.a.